Mike Whan's Take on Purse Equality for LPGA/PGA Tours

[jsgolfer]

Would anyone really watch the LPGA more if they had bigger purses? Does anyone watch the PGA because of the size of the purse?  I’ve never even thought about the purses ever.  You have to have a product that people want to watch and the women, unfortunately are just not as exiting as the men.  

And CEO’s still need to show a profit, even if they like golf and want to play pro-ams, because if they don’t, they won’t be a CEO for long.

So why stop with golf, what about the WNBA, should they get paid as much as the Men?

[iacas]

6 minutes ago, jsgolfer said:

Would anyone really watch the LPGA more if they had bigger purses? Does anyone watch the PGA because of the size of the purse?  I’ve never even thought about the purses ever.  You have to have a product that people want to watch and the women, unfortunately are just not as exiting as the men.  

And CEO’s still need to show a profit, even if they like golf and want to play pro-ams, because if they don’t, they won’t be a CEO for long.

So why stop with golf, what about the WNBA, should they get paid as much as the Men?

I think there's some merit to the idea that because men's golf has always been covered, it's grown more than the LPGA Tour. That because it's always been that way, the women's game has lagged behind, and if for some reason the roles had been reversed, the women's game would be much bigger than it is now.

But… I don't know that I quite buy that. Generally, I think there are reasons beyond TV coverage why people watch men's sports, mostly, more readily than women's sports.

[StuM]

51 minutes ago, ncates00 said:

Maybe if they want to claim losses for tax purposes. 

The math does not support that.  Assuming a 50% tax bracket. You spend a dollar to save 50 cents in taxes, you are out 50 cents after recouping the tax.

[ChetlovesMer]

1 hour ago, chspeed said:

This is a great point. The decision makers at Fortune 500 companies are driven by more than just company profit.

No, not really. When fortune 500 companies lose money. PEOPLE LOSE THEIR JOBS. I for one would be pissed off if the CEO of my company was dumping money into the LPGA just because they wanted it to be "fair". IT IS FAIR, you get paid based on revenue generated. That's how sports/life/business works. If you want more money... GENERATE MORE MONEY!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

This idea that a CEO can just throw a companies money down the toilet because he or she "likes golf" is re-god-damned-diculous! Firstly, read The Sarbanes-Oxley Act. That could actually land the CEO in jail. Secondly, CEO's at Fortune 500 companies report to a board of directors for the very reason to keep them from pissing the companies money down the drain.

 

1 hour ago, chspeed said:

Because $7M for a Fortune 500 company is a rounding error. And the publicity that can generate could have a lot more ROI than 60 seconds of a lame ad during the Superbowl.

What? ?????  Huh, no! Just NO!

$7M dollars for a Fortune 500 company is 70-100 people's jobs! 

Whether or not the SuperBowl ads are profitable is NOT what this thread is about. But, guess what.... companies calculate their ROI on Superbowl ads. 

[Darkfrog]

56 minutes ago, iacas said:

This is a long trail of maybes.

Well, it is purely hypothetical and not meant as a serious, real-world proposal, so I didn't want to use absolutes. It's just an off-the-cuff brainstormed idea of how a corporation might increase its value by treating an LPGA sponsorship as a component in a broader marketing campaign. If the only way for LPGA purses to be equal to the PGA Tour is to have equal TV viewership, I don't see that happening for a long time. But maybe (there it is again 😄) there are some creative, forward thinking marketers who can work with this limitation to the same ends.

57 minutes ago, ncates00 said:

I doubt people are going to flock to a company for a job or their product just because they paid women golfers the same as men golfers.

That's not what I said, but since it is hypothetical anyways, it doesn't really matter. All I am suggesting is that maybe there is an unconventional solution to reach the goal of equal purses that doesn't involve increasing the Neilsen ratings for the LPGA. I did vote for the25+ years category, so I am not arguing that my hypothetical is a reasonable idea.

 

[ChetlovesMer]

2 hours ago, GolfLug said:

Having said that, I love watching LPGA

Me too.

28 minutes ago, jsgolfer said:

Would anyone really watch the LPGA more if they had bigger purses? Does anyone watch the PGA because of the size of the purse?  I’ve never even thought about the purses ever.  You have to have a product that people want to watch and the women, unfortunately are just not as exiting as the men.  

This

2 minutes ago, Darkfrog said:

If the only way for LPGA purses to be equal to the PGA Tour is to have equal TV viewership, I don't see that happening for a long time. But maybe (there it is again 😄) there are some creative, forward thinking marketers who can work with this limitation to the same ends.

They need something or someone to market. They really need a SuperStar that moves the needle. As has been mentioned a dozen times in this thread. Michelle Wie had a chance to be that SuperStar but it didn't quite happen. 

[ncates00]

1 hour ago, StuM said:

The math does not support that.  Assuming a 50% tax bracket. You spend a dollar to save 50 cents in taxes, you are out 50 cents after recouping the tax.

Corporate tax rate is a flat 20%. Nonetheless, the math might not be there for the present year, but a corporation may want to generate NOL’s and carry them forward to a year in which they think they may need to lower their tax liability. 

1 hour ago, Darkfrog said:

That's not what I said...

 

 

2 hours ago, Darkfrog said:

 And maybe this drives talented women to want to work at this company, and gains a bunch of new women as customers who believe in the messaging, and ultimately creates more value then the initial investments.

Again, not fleshed out, and perhaps not really viable in any circumstance, and I'm not a marketer, so perhaps this is crazy talk.

Looks to me that’s exactly what you said. 

[StuM]

11 minutes ago, ncates00 said:

Corporate tax rate is a flat 20%. Nonetheless, the math might not be there for the present year, but a corporation may want to generate NOL’s and carry them forward to a year in which they think they may need to lower their tax liability. 

I was using 50% as an exaggeration.  The math is worse at 20%.  Spend a dollar to save 20 cents, you are negative 80 cents. Carry forwards reduce future taxes but still are losses.  They are a way to offset losses that have been incurred but to intentionally incur a loss does not create a gain. The tax recovered is a fraction of the loss.

[Darkfrog]

42 minutes ago, ncates00 said:

Looks to me that’s exactly what you said. 

You left out a lot of context. What I exactly said was:

Quote

what if a company buys an LPGA sponsorship which includes a prize purse equal to the men's event on the same dates. The company accepts there will be a financial loss but gain of goodwill among their target audience. Then the run a separate marketing campaign focusing on equal pay for women which states that they were the first LPGA sponsor to provide a prize purse equal to the men, and maybe the marketing campaign also highlights other women's rights/equality issues the company supports too. And maybe this drives talented women to want to work at this company, and gains a bunch of new women as customers who believe in the messaging, and ultimately creates more value then the initial investments.

You distilled it down to:

Quote

I doubt people are going to flock to a company for a job or their product just because they paid women golfers the same as men golfers.

Those two statements are not the same. I never said that just paying women golfers more would drive female talent to the company. Paraphrasing myself, what I said was that a LPGA sponsorship could be part of a broader campaign to increase a sponsoring company's value. But again, I wasn't trying to propose a realistic solution, it is just a thought experiment, so it really doesn't matter. All I am asking philosophically is if there are ways that LPGA purses can gain equivalency with the current limitations of the product that have been mentioned (less interest/viewership, no superstars, etc.).

[Aguirre]

I haven't read the entire thread but the only chance I see this occurring is at at the US Open, the Open (British), and LPGA (which I think the PGA just became a part of like five years ago). The women's Slams in tennis are equal pay largely because those events are joint events. And--also importantly--draw a lot of television ratings and crowds for the women as well as the men. In golf, the ratings and crowds are way behind. And of course, those events are not held in the same weeks at the same venue.

The LPGA and PGA Tour are not associated entities. So I doubt any of this will happen anytime soon.

[saevel25]

Not sure if this is relevant here, but PGA Tour commissioner was asked what proportion of revenue the PGA receives from its contracts with the Golf Channel and NBC, is 90%. 

But, the contract is set up in a way that the LPGA and PGA tour share the revenues. So PGA tour is keeping 90% of the revenues. Not implying anything.

[iacas]

The stark differences between the PGA and LPGA Tour

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On this week’s episode of Off Course, Marina Alex offered her take on the big-time difference in amenities on the men’s and women’s tour.

[Roadking2003]

On 2/22/2021 at 11:24 AM, Darkfrog said:

So maybe purse equality requires some sacrifice/affirmative action. Not sure how or when that happens, and I voted for the 25+ years, because I think there is a lot to overcome, in spite of Mike Whan's optimism.

I fail to see why purse equality is a goal at all.  Professionals should be paid what the market wants them to be paid.  If women's golf has a better product, they will earn more.   

[iacas]

 

[turtleback]

On 2/22/2021 at 7:02 PM, iacas said:

I think there's some merit to the idea that because men's golf has always been covered, it's grown more than the LPGA Tour. That because it's always been that way, the women's game has lagged behind, and if for some reason the roles had been reversed, the women's game would be much bigger than it is now.

But… I don't know that I quite buy that. Generally, I think there are reasons beyond TV coverage why people watch men's sports, mostly, more readily than women's sports.

For me, if I'm going to take the time to watch a sport I want to see it at its highest level.  Ladies golf is not golf at its highest level.  I also don't watch women's basketball, hockey or softball.  And I don't watch men's college basketball or football for the same reason.

In sports like women's gymnastics, OTOH, it is that sport at its highest level because men gymnasts lack the flexibility to the same things the women do.  

 

On 2/22/2021 at 8:22 PM, ncates00 said:

Corporate tax rate is a flat 20%. Nonetheless, the math might not be there for the present year, but a corporation may want to generate NOL’s and carry them forward to a year in which they think they may need to lower their tax liability. 

This sounds a lot like lose money but make it up in volume.  If you lose money you lose money, no matter when it hits your tax return.

[iacas]

6 hours ago, turtleback said:

For me, if I'm going to take the time to watch a sport I want to see it at its highest level.  Ladies golf is not golf at its highest level.  I also don't watch women's basketball, hockey or softball.  And I don't watch men's college basketball or football for the same reason.

In sports like women's gymnastics, OTOH, it is that sport at its highest level because men gymnasts lack the flexibility to the same things the women do.

The women are less robotic than the men, and because you can't see too many shots that only men can hit that women can't… and because you have no real sense of the distance of shots on TV (ball is hit, ball is seen against sky, ball lands on green), it's often the same from that perspective.

Men gymnasts are stronger than women gymnasts. Flexibility only goes so far. And I think men still do more events, like the pommel horse, that women don't do.

[Roadking2003]

On 1/22/2021 at 9:48 AM, woodzie264 said:

I didn't mean to suggest that simply changing the demographic of who is watching will fix the issue, but rather increasing the volume of total viewers/interested parties via increasing the percentage that comes from a particular demographic that is glaringly absent from the audience would be hugely helpful towards that end.  

 

Yes, and I believe we are overthinking this issue.  You can boil it down to these observations.

1. I watch what is entertaining to me.  I don't care about the players sex, race, age, etc.  I NEVER choose to watch based on anything but entertainment value. Picking what you think is entertaining is 100% subjective.
2. Entertainers should be paid what they earn and what they earn is based on the number of fans (and their money) they attract.  There should be no effort to pay one group the same as another group.  Fans vote with their wallets.

One thing the LPGA has over the PGA in terms of entertainment value is sex and sex sells (men like to watch sexy women, they always have, and they always will).  So, maybe they should accept reality and get more attractive players.

Another issue with the LPGA is player identification.  College football and basketball are extraordinarily entertaining because fans IDENTIFY with their school.  Unfortunately, the LPGA has very few stars that Americans identify with, and America is the biggest market by a wide margin.

In the end, it's just entertainment and Americans spend $37 billion on entertainment every year so a lot is at stake.

[Big Lex]

12 hours ago, turtleback said:

For me, if I'm going to take the time to watch a sport I want to see it at its highest level.  Ladies golf is not golf at its highest level.  I also don't watch women's basketball, hockey or softball.  And I don't watch men's college basketball or football for the same reason.

In sports like women's gymnastics, OTOH, it is that sport at its highest level because men gymnasts lack the flexibility to the same things the women do.  

 

This sounds a lot like lose money but make it up in volume.  If you lose money you lose money, no matter when it hits your tax return.

I like watching both men's and women's sports, but for most sports, I like men's sports much more. I don't think it really pertains to it being the highest level. For me, it's just about identification. I identify with men because I'm one, so I prefer watching them. I like watching men and women equally in the more "artistic" sports like figure skating and gymnastics. I don't think the purses of women's tournaments will ever equal men's, so long as both are equally available for sponsorship dollars. I suppose there could be an exception if some entity with very deep pockets - like, say, a sovereign wealth fund - decides to back some type of women's sporting event at a very high level.